ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the kind of impact that large-scale male migration is having on family members left behind, particularly on women, even though it is not possible to quantify all of the effects. The need for family interdependence becomes no less important while the migrant worker is living abroad. If he is married and has children, he has to entrust his wife and children to the care of his or her parents, or in their absence, to other relatives. If he is unmarried, he depends on his relatives to keep on the lookout for a suitable bride for him. The extent to which individual households are depleted of their menfolk as a consequence of the prevailing drift to the Middle East is reflected in the changing sex ratios in villages of high migration. Migration seems to be increasing the age at marriage of males, as well as females, in Kerala.
